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Yes, we should and will proceed in this direction. But I want to point out that nobody should have too great expectations:
– Such a new feature will not replace the regular half-annual census. Why not? Because we need a fixed-day/-month in order to have a rational overview of the present state of affairs. All who think that the actual state of the species could be mirrored by the new method are wrong: It will offer some new possibilities of advertising or searching, nothing more. The EAC has a similar feature since long, but it does not work for all the breeders and all the species. It works for those who want to use it for solving their problem. It’s a supplement, nothing else.
– It will therefore not replace the distribution-system, because the distribution-system is much more general, not bound to reading and writing in the forums. There are many who don’t use any forum and they won’t probably in the future either. Even in our membership. Many good breeders have never entered our forums. And it’s no solution to uncouple it from the forums: There are many who visit our homepage very irregularly. You cannot change the habits of people who follow their own agenda.
– Therefore, the most important thing is the following: Such a feature will be used by some who like it, but it will not be used by others, even of our members. Telling the real name, the town and the actual stock is for some people not attractive but the exact contrary. We can try to advertise and boost it, and we should and will, but it will remain everybody’s preference to use it or not to use it. But I advocate to install it nevertheless, because those who want to use it can find new contacts for exchanging fish.
That is to say, the new feature will be a complement and supplement, but nothing more. I think it could be a nice, useful supplement, but it will not be the ideal solution to one of our most difficult problems: how to get searchers for Paros and breeders of Paros together. For this aim, we need a diversity of methods. The new feature will work only then when a breeder is willing to use it. But I know many who will not do so even if I beg them to do. Nevertheless, they c o u l d. This makes it worthwhile to get it online.
This could indeed be a useful supplement to our distribution address but only if the most needed informations are given. Mind that many problems are based on the problem of locations and often in situations at the border of two European countries.
These necessary informations for all of us could be: forum name/clear name/country/town/species ready for distribution, approx. number/personal collection only or readiness for shipping, too
An example: Peter Finke/Peter Finke/Germany/Bielefeld/P. paludicola, ca. 20/ready for shipping. (This is not an actual offer, but an example only).
All other things could be disputed about in personal communication.
To illustrate the point with a special request: I know of a young Swiss friend who is unable to get Paros in Switzerland at present. But living near the German border he would be ready to fetch his fish personally if the breeder lives not to far away. Otherwise he would be ready to pay a good transport company.
Dear Rafael and Pavel, very good ideas, Rafael, and a fine reply, Pavel. Unfortunately, Switzerland is not yet that fine Paro-country any more that it was twenty years ago. To my knowledge, all those good Swiss breeders have no fish any more. But we shall get you some, from Germany.
I just wrote a private message to you, Rafael. Please, respond to my private address given there.
And good luck! We shall try to help you!
PeterDifferent species of Hydra are efficiently killed by Flubenol, the small green ones for instance that sometimes appear when feeding is based on Artemia. Take a very small quantity (a tip of a knife) only, put it on the water surface, do nothing else and the Hydrae will contract in a few hours time and disappear completely within the next 24 hours. I never saw any negative effects on my fish and their offspring. I cannot, however, give a guarantee in respect to very small young. But if they are four weeks old it should be safe, especially if there is a water change of three quarters afterwards.
Jit, I don’t understand you. What do you mean with “In return, you will get durian”?
Who or what is “durian”?This is one of the most frequently visited topics in our four forums. Of course, the joint Aquarium-Dietzenbach/my fish/and P-P-initiative is mirrored by this awareness.
But there are relatively few reports about progress/changes/difficulties in trying to breed the fish to be read here. A few successful breedings only, and all others too young?
It could be helpful for many if more people would report here, including observations of their own mistakes (every beginner makes mistakes, I sometimes do until today!), the changes of their care, of the behaviour of the growing fishes, the expected or unexpected difficulties in getting the fish to spawn and breed.
Please try to tell us what you see and learn, even if there is no final success to be proud of!.
The Sedili site is nearly the only site which remained for P. alfredi from several small sites formerly, most of them were situated at the old road from Mawai to Desaru in the Johore province of Kota Tinggi. Google maps show a momentum some years ago when there was very high water indeed; that had changed some weeks after already. The actual site visited by Prof. Beyer was a rather small area not to be identified properly by that outdated map.
The changing water-level may have heavy effects on the fish populations, good and bad. Beyer who was over there not for the first time will surely visit the site at his next opportunity, and there maybe a changed situation as P. alfredi is regarded. Either to the better or to the worse. But according to his report the later is most likely. Obviously, heavy building is going on over there presently, and the connections to the small remaining isles of former rainforest with the former peat swamps is obviously blocked on many places. This does not leave much hopes.
But we have Asian members living in Singapore or nearby. Please, look and tell us the present situation!
Fundamentally, it is advisable to go for fishing at low-water times. In high waters you are rarely lucky to find what you are searching for. Again: Our local friends, please tell us how things develop and the remaining formemost alfredi-site can be located properly again!
We know the coordinates of of two small sites: 1) 01° 51′ 23 N, 104° 03′ 54 E, and 2) 01° 50′ 02 N, 104° 04′ 26 E.
The Substrate is of minor importance in a Paro-tank. It’s not a tank for gardening. There are successful breeders using no subtrate whatsoever, others (as myself f.i.) use calcium-free gravels or peat. Deepin’ peats suggestion to use dry beech or oak leaves is very good since it come near to the natural situation in the rainforest peat swamps of south-east Asia.
A congratulation for deepin’ peats replies to many questions in these forums; they are strictly to the point and exhibit knowledge and expertise.
That’s a good reply. The only methods besides flashlight used for the photos of our book are a mirror (see frontispiece of “two” linke on the title page or page 148 (it’s one fish mirrored!) or nagyi on page 147 or rubrimontis on page 127. Martin Hallmann discovered that method to instigate aggressional behaviour and get the fish to open their fins to a maximum span. But in all cases there was no later playing with the computer for enhancing the colours.
However, we know from the internet quite a few photos where this had beed done; even some older photos of Horst Linke (see the old fourth edition of his Labyrinth book) have been “coloured”, but since years and in the new edition he did not do this again.
Dorothee, I did not say that you should feed them all at once but that you should be conscious of what you do. It is quite rational to feed older naupliae, too, but one should be conscious about their status: they lost most of their nutritional value. But they maybe useful as food nevertheless now and then, because there is no constant high nutritional value in natural food either. Sometimes, fish eat food for other aims as to grow or to become fertile or fat: e.g. simply for staying alive and be no longer hungry, young and adults. Young need more nutritional value than adults, of course, and this matches happily with freshly hatched Artemia. But it is equally wrong to feed our aquarium fish food of high-percentage nutritional value exclusively.
That is one of the reasons why live food is much better than the industrial food we have today. It has a good mixture of all which a fish needs without producing too much waste in the end. Industrial food has a constant composition of ingredients, including components of highly concentrated nutritional value, and this is unnatural. Every community tank fed on industrial food only has quite a problem with germs and waste, the smaller the more. And its fish tend to become too fat. We have this problem much less, a great advantage.
I think, what you do is quite all right. Probably you change: beginning with freshly hatched naupliae but continuing to use the older ones the next two days, as I do it, too. If we are conscious of the fact, that fish need high nutritional value for growing and becoming fertile, then this is OK. There are probably more aquarium fish dying from overfeeding by a too much concentrated food but by the contrary. Leaving our adult Paros for the fortnight of a holiday without food is not only quite in order, but often we see them caring for eggs after our return.
I only wanted to say: Artemia is not Artemia, regardless the age. Freshly hatched, they are of concentrated value, older they have other values. We must know what we are doing. Paros love adult or nearly adult Artemiae, too. But to get the Artemia to this stage we have to feed (“boost”) the naupliae, otherwise they die within days or consist of hard shells only for some hours till death. And I wanted to say: the cystshells do no harm, at least not to our fish.
[quote=”7 Zwerge” post=4053]And my friend, who has seen the fine colored photos in the Paro book (look, now I will get nice colored new fish :whistle: 😉 😛 ) says that those colored photos are a bluff 👿 :cheer: B)[/quote]
What do you mean by this remark? Do you mean it seriously or not?
Exactly, Deepin’ peat hits the point. There are no eggs, but cysts, and the cystshells are not dangerous for Paros even if occasionally swallowed (that maybe different with other fish). They are contrary to beautiful for us, insofar we try to avoid it.
The nutritional value of Artemia naupliae vanishes rather rapidly after hatching. It is best immediately after hatching, and nearly to nothing after three days without being fed. This does not mean that “old naupliae” should not be fed to the fishes, but we should be conscious of that. We can bring female licorice gouramies to fertility with fresh Artemia but not with unboostered old naupliae.
Steff, I regret to say it but you are wrong:
1. I fully understand an aquarist who wishes to know which Paro he/she has, especially if there is a suspicion that the trade name was wrong.
2. But I have to explain why there are a few cases in which this wish could not be matched even by the experts.
3. Take the following comparison: Suddenly, there is an unknown bird in your garden. You ask an expert and he tells you the species. Even – say – in winter-time when there are birds from the east or the north as guests in our regions and some look a bit different than our nominate species an expert can tell it. The taxonomic situation is clear, even underlined with detailed genetic knowledge.
4. Our case is different, and all Paro-friends must know the backgrounds. There is no complete knowledge of the world’s Paros. The hitherto taxonomy is in many cases OK, but in some it is uncertain and instable: the round-tailed forms with red in the fins. Take the question that Martin Hallmann and I have tackled in our book on the Paros: Which fish had Walter Foersch, the founder of Paro-aquaristis? He thought “deissneri”, but surely they were not deissneri. But – as the fine coloured photos by Hans-Joachim Richter tell us – they probably were no tweediei, no rubrimontis and no alfredi either. There is an undescribed form from Western Malaysia – spec. Kota Tinggi – which come near to Foersch’s fish. Maybe ist was to be found at Ayer Hitam in those times. Now, the location is destroyed. We will never know for sure which form it was. I had got some from Foersch personally, and will never know.
5. In your case maybe the situation changes in a few years, but presently it is impossible to say. We have new knowledge about an astonishing variety even in tweediei, according to food and other environmental conditions that can change. We see that the hitherto used methods of taxonomy are oldfashioned and unreliable. In many cases there is no problem; a quindecim is a quindecim and a filamentosus is a filamentosus, but if the determination is based on colours only and we have no lacation for sure (the trade situation), it is impossible to decide even for experts in some cases. And the reason is not their weak expertise, but the weak old-fashioned methods of taxonomy and the habits of the trade.
6. It is likely that more genetic information will not solve your problem. All we know now, the species in question are very near to each other. It is more likely that a bold scientist will revise the genus altogether with the new methods of genetically underlined determination and throw some of the species away which are based on colour differences only and tell us: Paros develop presently very fastly; the changing environmental situation results in many semi-species. The species differentiation has not yet come to a halt in theses cases.
7. This is the most likely explanation for your problem. It is a very interesting situation, quite different to the problems of the majority of aquarists. We have a genus which is in rapid change itself. Isn’t that interesting, a very specific situation of great suspense? A different thing is your motives. I fully understand them, but I have to explain the backgrounds why it cannot be met presently.(Between two lectures in Dresden, Germany):
I strongly recommend not to take the question of exact species determination as serious and important as some seem to take it. You must know that Parosphromenus is a young genus that is developing still today. Many processes of species-differentiation have not yet come to a halt. It is most intelligible that we have quite a few semi-species (a serious concept of the most modern theories of species). The hitherto outcomes from the genetic research on Paros say the same thing: very near to each other, except for P. parvulus and P. ornaticauda (which we aquarists know since long from our close obervations of the behaviour).
The valid scientific names of our fishes do not reflect that situation. This sort of “scientific description” leads to strict differetiations that are not met by the underlying facts. It is most likely that the Paro-nomenclature has to be revised in later times, and I shall not anticipate what the outcome will be when the genetical informations have much more developed and the taxonomical methods have been revised in that light.
No “young search for their father”, as I read here. WE search, and we apply methods which are much too strict for that highly mobile system of evolving species that we see in the Paro-world. Take that as the interesting fact, not those names of some people who mostly have not seen the living fish or even his behaviour.The names are not irrelevant, nobody must mistake bintan for deissneri or alfredi for rubrimontis, but the eager discussion in this threat does not reflect the factual problem: the highly flexible actual evolution of a young genus. There is a remarkable variation within the boundaries of those species, and it can evoke that discussions, but the discussions mus reflect the biological situation in south-east Asia and not the wishful thinking of some aquarists who like to have it clearer than nature is ready to deliver.
THese “breathing bags” are perhaps good for fish that use much oxgen even in transport situations (swimming etc.), but they are not of any advantage for licorice gouramies. Our fish rest motionsless below a leaf and wait for their fate. In case of distress they use their labyrinth, even if they don_t use it in normal situations.
It’s a commercial hype, just as many other offers of the aquarium industry. Forget it for Paros.
